I unloaded, rested for an hour and struck out again. The cavalry was ahead of me. I moved faster, for a Yankee rear does sometimes hurry a fellow.
I went all night; slept in the road and at daylight started again, making a good day’s march. Late in the evening I found I was near the cavalry again, so I made great strides to catch up. Ahead I saw a bridge across a stream and Forrest and his staff walking on the gravel bar. I hoped I could slip over before they saw me and handed the guard my pass. He said, “You will have to show it to General Forrest.” I was frightened sure enough. General Forrest did not care for passes or anything else when out of humor. I had faced a thousand Yankee guns, but I couldn’t face Forrest!
I waited some distance off, hoping he would go to an other part of the line, but he seemed to attend to that bridge himself. Finally he did walk away a few paces. Then I ran up to the adjutant, showed him my pass, and he waved the guard to let me go over.
I tried to beat Forrest to the next bridge, but when I got there he was on the bank higher above it. By their firelight I could see the infantry across the river and I thought, “I am safe now.” When I reached the pontoon bridge over the Tennessee, the cavalry was crossing. I started across in the dark, but the guard stopped me. “You can’t cross here—pass or no pass—you will have to see General Forrest.” I argued with that guard, but it did no good. Then I thought to myself, “He will not shoot into his own men,” and I said, “I am going across and you may shoot me if you like.” I ran past him. He could not see me in the dark, or he might have shot.
After I got across the bridge I found that my command had gone two days before, so I camped all night by the straggler’s fire. It was one of the worst nights of the campaign. A biting cold wind was blowing and we fairly froze to the ground. For two days I followed my regiment. My rations gave out and I was trudging along the road, forlorn and very hungry, when I heard some one call me. It was a boy of Company G, detailed with the engineers’ corps. I stayed with him that night. He had plenty of grub and filled me up.
December 27th, we passed Tuscumbia and on the 29th we camped at Iuka. On this march we crossed Bear Creek on a railroad bridge. The mules were unhitched from the wagons and led across. When I got there a fine pair of mules were on the bridge. They got half way over, then mule-like, decided they would back a little, and they backed clear off the bridge and went under the water, head and ears, to the amusement of the web-foot soldiers.
January 1, 1865, we marched seven miles and camped near Corinth. Here we washed up, and felt of ourselves, to see if we were all there. Here I caught up with my command. I surely was glad to see the boys and they were to see me, for they supposed I was eating rats on Johnson’s Island. There were not many of us left. The killed, wounded and captured at Nashville had about finished the “shooting-match.”
